


Weightless

by ficteer



Category: Ookiku Furikabutte | Big Windup!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Loveless, Canon Compliant, Drama, Fluff, M/M, soul mates, very slight angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-05
Updated: 2014-10-05
Packaged: 2018-02-19 22:24:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 14,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2405120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ficteer/pseuds/ficteer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I will make you into a real ace. And in return, you must throw as I tell you to. I hate pitchers who shake their heads at me.” </p><p>Those words sank like lead in his gut, but even as Mihashi felt the wrongness in every pore of his body and heard the no no no clanging in his head, he nodded. It was an absolute truth etched in his soul the moment that first pitch left his hand and made contact with his catcher’s mitt. A small trail of sweat down his temple, and a thick swallow that was as taut as his pale fingers gripping the pants beneath them.</p><p>More than anyone else in the world, he could never tell Abe Takaya no.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. those who are not bound to the earth

**Author's Note:**

> Loveless is a manga by Yun Kouga, but it's not necessary to have read it at all to enjoy this because I am only taking the world building from it and applying it to Oofuri. This is what you need to know for this fic:
> 
> 1\. Everyone has cat ears and a cat tail from birth, and they are lost the first time someone has sex. When someone loses their cat features, they are considered in society to be an "adult" as they've lost their physical manifestation of innocence.
> 
> 2\. Everyone has another person that shares the same "true name" from birth. Most people don't meet their pair, and they go through life not missing them. Once someone meets their pair, their "true name" is inscribed somewhere on their body, and it's in the same place for the other person. This is their soul mate, and it's an incredibly special bond that can't really be put into words by those who don't experience it. Mihashi will try his best lmao
> 
> 3\. Each pair is made up of a Sacrifice and a Fighter, who fight together against other pairs. The Sacrifice takes damage, and the Fighter makes commands using Wordspells. This will be explained in more depth in the fic, so don't worry about this just yet.
> 
> Enjoy, and please feel free to ask any questions.

The paper clutched in his hands weighs ten thousand pounds, causing his biceps to quake and shiver with every ounce they bear. It’s but a single piece of paper, innocuous on its own, but the black ink scrawled not-so nicely at the top with the words  _baseball team_ and  _directions to the field_  destroy whatever hope it had to be just another sheet of innocence. He was going to quit, Mihashi reminded himself with each heavy step, he was just going to watch, he wouldn’t get to play anyway, the high school team wouldn’t want a pitcher like him - except a heavy hand on his shoulder and a devious curl of feminine lips changes everything.

It’s not five minutes later he’s standing in front of Momoe Maria introducing himself to her and the rest of the boys standing around. She’s loud, causing the furry ears on the top of his head to flatten even more than they already were, but she’s smiling and looks at him with nice eyes. She writes his name down in her little book, gushing excitedly when he responds to her question that he’s a pitcher, apparently the only pitcher, and what was he doing, wasn’t he just going to watch?

“Okay, let’s go through the positions, then. After the pitcher is catcher, so… Abe-kun, right?” Momoe says, looking around the field. Mihashi looks around too, eyes falling on a boy lifting his hand passively. His skin is tanned already from being outside all spring, and he’s dressed in the practice uniform, not street clothes like Mihashi. His hand, strong and broad, reaches up to the bill of his baseball cap as he takes it off to greet the team. He isn’t smiling, but there’s a second where his eyes meet Mihashi’s before moving to Momoe’s that Mihashi wonders what it would look like if he  _was_ , and he can feel the heat rise on his cheeks in a tell-tale sign that he’s definitely blushing.

Mihashi manages to shake off the strange thoughts long enough for Hanai to be humiliated by Momoe, but they come back with full force when a voice that is definitely Abe’s calls Mihashi’s name, because isn’t it strange that he should recognize Abe’s voice after only having heard him say a greeting? “Would you pitch to me a bit?” is what he’d said, half of a friendly smile on his face, and Mihashi can feel every muscle in his body clench because yes,  _yes_ , he wants to pitch to this boy with every piece of his being, but then he remembers the chill of snow and the feel of tears in his scarf, clenched fists and a promise to himself that this was the end,  _he was just here to watch_. He can feel his lips moving as he sinks down because if he’s smaller then maybe he can disappear, can’t hear the words coming out of his mouth but he knows he’s telling them he shouldn’t pitch and he was only the ace out of favoritism, and it’s now even worse because he can feel Abe’s disapproval and somehow that’s worse than anyone else’s.

“I like that in a pitcher,” is what Abe says, and Mihashi looks up in surprise and blinks through his tears as fast as he can because finally he sees Abe smiling, and his chest hurts so much with how his heart has risen into his throat and stopped speech and breathing and anything else that isn’t just  _looking_ at Abe and that charming expression. Before he even knows it himself, Mihashi is standing, reaching for the baseball with his right hand, his pitching hand, and nodding to Abe, saying yes, he’ll pitch, because even if he’ll be a disappointment, even if he’d promised himself to end it, this is what Abe wants.

Everyone else is watching as Mihashi throws the ball, and there’s the sting of disappointment when it’s as slow as ever. Just throwing to Abe instead of Hatake doesn’t make him a better pitcher no matter how much better it feels, and someone behind him is quick to call him out on the lack of speed. The words sting, and Mihashi feels his body turn before he can see the disappointment on Abe’s face and hear the same critique from his mouth. But then Abe’s calling his name, he throws the ball back and looks, and there’s a silent command in his eyes,  _throw the ball_ , and Mihashi without any hesitation does just that. He notices Abe shifting the glove around, testing his placement, and he glows, because this is something he  _can_ do, something that will make Abe proud of him. Sure enough, Abe’s eyes are practically glittering when he comes up to the mound, black fuzzy tail flicking back and forth excitedly behind him.

“Mihashi! What do you throw?!” he asks, voice stretched tight with excitement. Mihashi feels his tail flicker in response, ears finally perking up a bit as he explains each pitch, watching Abe’s eyes grow brighter and prouder each time he adds a ball. His body feels open and light, he’s done something to make Abe smile, and even as he clutches nervous hands at his chest, his fingers buzz with energy to pitch and keep going, and there’s a tiny moment where he thinks maybe just maybe he  _can_  join the baseball team.

He feels it until Abe challenges Hanai to the three at bat, and suddenly Mihashi remembers that there are more players than just him and Abe, and that baseball is a team sport built around a strong pitcher, and Abe is pulling him into a game that he will eventually lose because of not having that pitcher. Mihashi swallows thickly and stares at the catcher out of the corner of his eyes as he nods when Abe asks for him to follow. Abe was incredible, Mihashi thought while trailing behind him towards the dugout; Hanai was a cleanup hitter, and so  _tall_ , and Abe had told him all those things about him not being able to hit with that cocky smile on his face. His black ears had been standing up straight and proud, unlike Mihashi’s blond counterparts, which were again plastered nervously to his head as he sat uncomfortably across from Abe on the bench.

“You probably had signs you’re used to using. I’ll learn them, so let’s just use them here,” Abe tells him, and Mihashi feels that sinking sensation that he’s about to disappoint Abe again, that lingering heaviness that brings his eyes from Abe’s face down to where the catcher’s hands are resting on his thighs. 

“It’s been a while since I’ve gotten signs,” Mihashi confesses, gaze falling even further when he hears Abe’s questioning sound. “The catcher really hated me… I think.” He tacks on the last bit, because he doesn’t want Abe to know that it was so painfully obvious that Hatake had hated him, just in case it was contagious. He can’t let Abe know just how easy it is to hate someone like him, licks his lips quickly as his mind whirrs to try and find something to change the subject. The movement in the corner of his eyes provides just that, and he stares at Hanai warming up with his bat. “He was a cleanup hitter,” Mihashi points out, glad for the change of subject but also nervous, so nervous, because they were going to lose this game and it was going to be all his fault, and even if Hatake’s hate wasn’t contagious it was going to be so quick for Abe to fester his own.

Abe says he knows, that it’ll be fine, but Mihashi still can’t help the apology from tumbling out of his lips. Abe frowns, and Mihashi feels the tension in his spine from his stiff neck all the way to his tightly curled tail. “You’re still saying that?! We’ve gotten to this point, and you just can’t back out.”

“I’ll do it,” Mihashi interrupts quickly, because he must make Abe understand that he wants to pitch to him, but he also needs to make him understand just how horrible a decision it is for Abe to let him. He levels his gaze on Abe’s hands, remembers how good it sounded for the ball to leave his hand and impact on that glove, how good it felt to have Abe’s eyes on him and no one else. “...but because of me, you’ll lose, too.”

Abe says his name, softly, and Mihashi lets his eyes lift until he can see the serious expression on Abe’s face, the way he stares with a self-confidence that has Mihashi reeling and dazed. “I will make you into a real ace.” Mihashi felt more than heard the soft gasp under his breath, his chest clenching tightly around his hammering heart at Abe’s words; he’d hung on every syllable that had passed his lips all morning, but somehow, these were different, these words were more important. “And in return, you must throw as I tell you to. I hate pitchers who shake their heads at me.”

Those words sank like lead in his gut, but even as Mihashi felt the wrongness in every pore of his body and heard the  _no no no_  clanging in his head, he nodded. It was an absolute truth etched in his soul the moment that first pitch left his hand and made contact with his catcher’s mitt. A small trail of sweat down his temple, and a thick swallow that was as taut as his pale fingers gripping the pants beneath them.

More than anyone else in the world, he could never tell Abe Takaya no.

\----------

Training camp is the closest thing to hell Mihashi can imagine.

Abe hasn’t smiled at him since that first afternoon Mihashi took the wooden block from Momoe and felt the stirrings of eagerness in his gut. Abe had been so mad, his tail flicking back and forth behind him, until he’d finally given up and stormed off. Only a vision of Abe with a radar gun in hand, telling Mihashi how proud he was because  _Look, you finally got up to 130, Ren!_  made it bearable to work so hard, to look to Abe only to see either a scowl or the back of his head. Mihashi knew it was odd that he imagined Abe using his first name, he knew it was strange and weird and not something that people did, but somehow it felt good and he liked it. Liked it more than standing in the middle of the baseball diamond by himself, arms flailing like a windmill in a losing battle to keep himself upright around the dust finally settling from the last time he’d fallen.

The evenings had been even worse, because he’d spent the week tired from not sleeping and exhausted from the physical workouts, only to spend awkward team-bonding trying to please Abe while also trying to avoid him. Every breath was a contradiction of wanting to get closer and stamping down the shivering fear that he didn’t dare, because it was only a matter of time before Abe hated him, and why should he make it hurt worse later when the inevitable happened? Abe even yells at him, asking him why he lies when Abe asks if he hasn’t been sleeping, and tells him that he better not throw at full speed or else they’ll lose. Mihashi clenches his eyes shut, knowing for a fact now that he won’t throw at full speed even if Momoe begs, and this was wrong  _wrong wrong wrong_  he and Abe were not supposed to be like this, he didn’t know what they  _were_  supposed to be like but it wan’t this, he wanted it to be different but he couldn’t change himself and he didn’t want to change Abe.

The bus ride to Mihoshi has him shivering in his seat even more than he’d been trembling all night in his futon, which probably would have surprised him if he could think about it for more than a few seconds before he remembers that they’re on their way to Mihoshi, and he never did find out of Hatake’s hate was contagious but it did indeed seem like Abe was festering some of his own anyway. Abe isn’t sitting next to him, he sits up at the front next to Hanai and they’re sort of talking to each other, and even though Tajima sits next to Mihashi with his arm around his shoulders and his loud voice belting into his ears, all Mihashi can hear is the painful throbbing of his heart in his chest and Abe’s voice, so far, far away.

It doesn’t get any better as the morning stretches on and they take to the field to warm up. Every pitch goes in the wrong place, and he can see the frustration building on Abe’s face even as he feels the cold panic weighing his every movement down to the ground. His body is heavy, and he wonders if this is what it feels like to be an iceberg; frozen and destroying everything in its path. And then, he hears the voices approaching, voices he knows well, voices that had been on the other side of his vow to leave Mihoshi and baseball behind. Suddenly, he’s all-too aware of the wrongness of a baseball jersey clutching his shoulders, the mitt on his hand covering palms way too icy to be this sweaty, and the smell of the dirt and grass makes him nauseous from the way his stomach is twisting in a knot. 

When he looks up and sees Kanou, he runs.

He’s not even really aware that he’s moving until he’s found the clubhouse wall, and he kneels in front of it because at least here is one direction where he doesn’t have to worry about someone coming from. His ears are plastered to his head but he can still hear the steady stream of apologies pouring from his mouth like water, steady except for the quivering of his whole body. Then, a voice behind him that he remembers every time he touches a baseball, and he looks over his shoulder to the face he’d disappointed for three years.

“H… Hatake-kun…” Mihashi says, staring at the frown on his ex-teammate’s face. 

“As always, the way you talk makes me sick.” Mihashi clutched his mouth and falls back, bringing his knees up closer to his chest as Hatake continued speaking with each step forward. He’s not even listening to what Hatake is saying; he doesn’t have to. He knows every word, knows it by heart, hears them in his nightmares and when he wakes up and when he brushes his teeth and when he bikes to school and when he practices… over and over they echo in his head until he goes to bed at night and clutches his pillow and prays for unplagued sleep. Over and over in his head, and now in his ears, until there’s a foot hitting next to his head and his body remembers the threat of pain all too well.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, he hears his name, and before he could tell it was Abe’s voice he  _knows_ that it’s Abe coming out from the bushes looking for him. Hatake leaves, and there’s a stretched silence between Mihashi and Abe that makes him feel sick. Mihashi clutches his hair even tighter in his fingers, shivering and staring with unseeing eyes that are filled with tears. This was the last thing he’d wanted Abe to see; this was the last thing he’d wanted Abe to know about, he wants to tell Abe to leave and pretend he never saw this happen but his teeth are chattering so much it’s a miracle he hasn’t bit his tongue. 

“Break your arm? What was that about?” Abe asks, and Mihashi can’t bring himself to look up, can barely make himself breathe. Abe rushes in closer, kneeling down in front of him, and he feels his body get even tighter in an attempt to shrink into nothingness. His ears are pressed so tightly to his skull he can barely hear Abe’s harsh tone. “Hey, if they actually tried that with you, you shouldn’t keep quiet!”

“Hatake-kun wanted Kanou-kun to pitch… but because I wouldn’t get off the mound…”

“So they tried to break your arm?!” Abe yells back, interrupting Mihashi’s hiccuping explanation, and Mihashi wonders if he can let himself hear the anger on his behalf in Abe’s tone, if he can let Abe’s anger be directed towards his teammates instead of him, if that’s allowed since he was the one who wouldn’t get off the mound, and it was his fault that they’d lost so many times in a row. No, he thinks, trembling even harder, he can’t do that. He needs to let Abe know just how horrible he is, give him a chance to find another pitcher before it’s too late, before Mihashi can let himself be the pitcher for him, even though it aches, it  _hurts_  to imagine Abe catching for someone else, it’s wrong.

“They didn’t do it, and it’s not Hatake-kun’s fault,” Mihashi says, each word met with a halting breath from his stuttering diaphragm. It feels like someone stepping on his tail, or ripping off his arm, but he needs to say this, he needs Abe to know, because more than anything else he can’t lie to Abe about this, not this. “I mean, Kanou-kun is a better pitcher, and everyone likes him, and they hate me.”

And then, he feels heat on his hand, his right hand, his pitching hand, and he looks up to see Abe’s fingers holding his tightly, Abe’s eyes staring hard into his own, his eyebrows drawn down in serious lines. “It’s all right. You’re a good pitcher.”

Ecstasy blooms in Mihashi’s chest, makes him cry even harder. “That’s not true… That’s not true!” he protests, excruciating and painful happiness twisting around his aching heart each time Abe’s hand tightens on his own and he repeats the words again,  _you’re a good pitcher, you’re a good pitcher_! Abe can’t be serious, Mihashi isn’t allowed to hear things like this, he isn’t allowed to feel Abe’s warm hand against his own with compliments taking his heart and unclenching it from his gut where Hatake had spun it into an iron weight. It isn’t fair to Abe for him to think these things, and even as he feels Abe trailing his fingers over his callouses, pausing when he gets to the callous on his middle finger from his fastball, he feels the happiness and the guilt collide together and war ferociously in his chest.

But then, he realizes that the shaking isn’t coming just from him, and he opens his eyes to see Abe is also trembling, face flushed and tears in his eyes too. Mihashi can feel the shock on his face, because it’s so wrong to see Abe like this, it’s not right, he should be smiling and happy, or yelling at him with that softness in his eyes, not this pained torment, what does he need to do to make that go away because he’ll do anything anything at all, just smile Abe please smile; and it comes again from Abe’s lips, “You’re a good pitcher… I like you, not just as a pitcher!” Mihashi feels the sharp intake of air into his lungs, feels it burn as the air lingers in his expanding chest like a small fire sparking in his body. “I mean, you’re making such an effort!”

Mihashi watches as Abe’s ears flick once, his face registering shock as he stares at him hard, and then his gaze falls to their clasped hands, eyes wide and mouth gaping, and he can’t help himself, he wants to hear more praise from Abe because it  _does_ something to him to hear it. “Do you… think I’m working hard?” 

“I do.” Mihashi feels his chest expand, his tongue getting looser and his heart starting to pound faster and faster against his ribs. More, he needs  _more._

“I like pitching!” Abe stands, his hand getting tighter on Mihashi’s, sharing some of that strength, and Mihashi barely hears Abe’s response that he knows, he can tell, it’s obvious to him that Mihashi loves pitching, and Mihashi wants to weep because his heart is in the clouds, and one more, just one more preposterous statement, one more time he wants Abe to acknowledge him, and dare he say this, yes, yes he does. “And… I… I want to win!” 

“We can win!” Abe says, voice forceful and eyes bright. Mihashi feels himself gape in delight, his hand blisteringly hot against Abe’s, and it feels so right to press their palms together like this, like this was a moment of completion his body had ached for since the moment it had existed. And then he keeps going even further, more than he dared but he just couldn’t stop anymore, and the words come out of his mouth too, that he likes Abe too, and it feels so  _right_ , his whole body resonates with the words  _I like you, Abe-kun_. He suddenly feels like ten thousand pounds have been lifted from his shoulders, and as he runs back to the dugout with Abe, he looks down to his ankles to make sure little wings hadn’t sprouted for how absolutely light he feels. 

He doesn’t know how he knows, but this…  _this_  is what they’re supposed to be like.

\----------

The third time they meditate in a circle, a soft sound of interest from Sakaeguchi breaks Mihashi’s concentration. He opens his eyes and looks over at his teammate, but the second baseman shakes his head and tightens his hold on Mihashi’s hand before closing his eyes again. Mihashi stares for a moment, perplexed, but he follows the lead and tries to sink back into his five minute relaxation. It doesn’t work, and he ends the meditation more restless than he had started it. He stands up, looks to Sakaeguchi with the hopes of asking him what he’d been thinking, but before he can they’re running and warming up for their morning practice. Maybe in the locker room, Mihashi thinks, staring at Oki’s back in front of him as he tries to keep the pace with the others.

He thinks that, except when the time comes for them to go to the locker room, Mihashi is acutely aware of all of the others surrounding them, and he feels the words swallow down his throat. Instead, he takes his shower, puts on his regular clothes for class, and leaves with Tajima and Izumi to get to class before the final bell rings. He sits in his desk and stares at the board, writing down what the teacher clacks with chalk, and pretends that his mind isn’t elsewhere, torn almost equally between the way Abe had smiled at him in greeting that morning and the ravenous curiosity for what Sakaeguchi wanted to say. 

And so it is that during lunch, Mihashi wolfs down his food even faster than usual and slips out, telling the others that he’ll be right back, except he knows that he won’t if the contemplative look on Sakaeguchi’s face haunting his morning had been anything to go by. He slips through the halls, through chatting students, until he reaches class one and peeks inside to see Suyama and Sakaeguchi sitting next to one another, eating lunch and apparently having a good conversation. There’s a moment where Mihashi hesitates in the doorway, because somehow it feels wrong to interrupt whatever they’re doing, but in the moment he decides to return to his classroom and wait until after practice to talk to Sakaeguchi, Suyama looks up and spots him hanging in the doorway.

“Oh, Mihashi,” he greets, leaning away from Sakaeguchi a bit as he gestures for the pitcher to come forward. Mihashi does just that, watching as Suyama looks to Sakaeguchi for a brief moment. There’s something there, some kind of nonverbal communication, and then Suyama stands and takes his lunch with him, putting a hand on Mihashi’s shoulder as he walks by. Mihashi jolts, looking over his shoulder because he hadn’t meant to separate them and what if they’re mad, but then Sakaeguchi calls his name and pats the seat Suyama had just vacated.

“Sakaeguchi-kun,” Mihashi greets, folding his hands together over his chest and managing to make eye contact after a moment. “You… this morning…”

“I thought you’d want to talk about that,” Sakaeguchi hummed pleasantly, reaching his hand out. “Mihashi, let me see your right hand.”

Extending his right hand, Mihashi placed his palm down against Sakaeguchi’s and stared as the second baseman turned it a bit in his hold. Then, Mihashi saw a flash of black that he’d never noticed before, because it was on the far side of his middle finger, and suddenly he’s embarrassed because he had this spot of dirt on his hands and Sakaeguchi had noticed. Except it’s not, he  _knows_  it’s not, this is a mark that’s  _supposed_  to be there, and before he can stop himself, he’s pulling his hand back and turning it so he can see what the spot looks like. It’s black lettering, he recognizes, and even before he reads the words, even though he’s no good at English and would have to ask Sakaeguchi, he knows what these letters say, he doesn’t have to ask because he knows this word, has always known this word, and reading them for the first time only feels like remembering something he’s always had in his mind.

“You too,” Sakaeguchi says, and Mihashi looks from his hand to his teammate’s smiling face. “I guess you’ve never noticed it before since it’s in a tough place, huh?”

Mihashi looks back down to the word traced in his skin and slowly runs his left pointer finger down each black edge. “What… what is it?” he asks, because Sakaeguchi knows, and Mihashi has never been so hungry to learn since he first picked up a baseball.

“It’s your name,” Sakaeguchi says, then seems to catch himself when Mihashi feels the confusion dragging into his face because no, his name is Mihashi Ren, but somehow he knows that this word is his name more than the other. “Well, it’s… a different name. A name that you share with the other person who shares your soul. Your partner.”

“Partner…?” Mihashi repeats, staring at the wood beneath his desk because no, that’s not the right word for it, and there’s a word on his tongue but it’s heavy and won’t come out.

Sakaeguchi keeps talking. “When you meet that person, you form a bond with them, and your name is written on your bodies in the same place. There’s more to it, but it’s the kind of thing you’ll need to figure out with your partner.” Again, that word, that wrong word, and Mihashi swallows the alternative down his throat to sink low in his gut, because doesn’t he already have someone like that, and all this talk about things happening from his birth makes him feel sick, because there’s only one person who he wants to be partnered with, and the word  _battery_  rises again for him to use to correct Sakaeguchi before he shoves it back down one last time. He’s not even really aware that he’s stood until he hears the scrape of the chair on the floor, and he barely manages to thank Sakaeguchi before he’s out the door, back to his classroom just in time to hear the last bell and use it as an excuse not to address the prying eyes of Izumi and Tajima at his peculiar condition. 

Mihashi writes the word down in his notes, writes his name, his true name, writes  _Weightless_ , and once again feels a shift in his whole body like fate is pressing down on all sides, and he crumples up the paper and stuffs it in his desk like somehow that will make it go away. But now he knows it's there, and every time he looks at his right hand he catches a glimpse of the black letters, and they weigh on his skin like a hot brand of awareness. He fidgets in his desk, stares at the clock, move move  _move_  to the minute hand, and his foot taps nervously against the floor.

When the bell rings, Mihashi strips out of the classroom and ignores Tajima’s teasing at his back that he’s super excited for practice today, because it’s true, sort of. He runs into the clubroom, hazel eyes everywhere at once, and he realizes with a flush of embarrassment that he’d run there so fast, he’d been the first one. Staring at his locker, his blush gets worse, because really, what had he been thinking? ‘ _Yes excuse me, Abe-kun, can I see your hand’_ sounds stupid even in his head, and maybe he could just… grab it and look, except what if that made Abe mad… So Mihashi just changes into his practice uniform, and bikes to the field before everyone else, stretching and staring at the gate with apprehension curling everywhere in his body. 

Abe arrives with Hanai not too long after Mihashi is no longer alone on the field, and Mihashi hears the guttural noise that scraped out of his throat as he physically retrains himself from walking over to Abe and grabbing his hand. They were going to meditate, he could sit on Abe’s right hand side and see. He stands, bounding over to Abe and opening his mouth before he’s even really sure what he’s going to say to pretend like he’s just talking to Abe (what did they normally even talk about…?), so instead he tells Abe how he weighed himself that morning, and Abe smiles and praises him for doing a good job taking care of himself. Mihashi feels the shiver run down his spine all the way to the tip of his tail, and surely Abe is the one that shares his name because he wouldn’t, couldn’t think of it being anyone else. 

Mihashi is sure that Abe would notice him clinging to the empty space at his right side, but if he does, he says nothing. They gravitate towards the others, and then they’re gathering in a circle. Mihashi sits next to Abe, every cell in his body vibrating because  _yes_ he managed to sit on Abe’s right side. His right hand clasps Izumi’s, and then he looks down to his left hand where Abe is reaching out with his right, and he shifts his hand just so to get a view of the outside of Abe’s middle finger, and - 

Nothing.

Abe’s hand feels like fire against his icy skin, and he knows that Abe is staring at him with a scowl, but he can’t look, he can’t  _breathe_ , he can only look at the dirt in front of him and try to stay upright long enough to get through meditation so he can find a place to run away. Except no, he was the pitcher on this team, he was allowed to be the pitcher because that’s what Abe wanted, he was going to be practicing his fast fastball with Abe today, and Abe’s voice rang clear in his mind  _There’s no hiding on the mound_ and Mihashi feels not quite sick, because that would mean he could feel his body and at this point everything is numb and unattached and he feels like the entire universe has just collapsed in his chest for the pressure he feels.

When meditation is over, he stands, and its only then that he notices Izumi staring at him with a concerned expression. “Mihashi, are you okay? You don’t look so good,” he says, and Mihashi just nods his head because if he opens his mouth there’s no telling what will come out. Izumi frowns, his blue eyes calculating and uncomfortable, but he exhales and turns to walk away with a shrug, and Mihashi could cry in gratitude. He’s shocked he’s not already crying, but that would probably require him to  _feel_  something besides this aching nothingness. His right hand hurts, and when he picks up a baseball and stares across the bullpen where Abe is crouched, he throws the ball like he’s nothing more than a pitching machine, and there’s no satisfaction that rises with the thwack of the ball against Abe’s glove. 

He feels the moment Abe is fed up even before he sees his pitcher stare for a moment, then close his eyes and stand on a heavy exhale. Mihashi’s whole body tenses as he gets ready to sprint off to a hiding spot, but Abe’s mouth is parted in a snarl, and he growls “Don’t you think about running away!” and just like that, Mihashi is pinned, feeling his body shrink more and more with each step thundering beneath Abe’s fury until Abe’s grabbing his shirt in a tight grip, his mask somewhere behind him and all of that anger in Mihashi’s face. “What the hell is wrong with you today, huh?!” 

“N… Nothing is… No…” Mihashi stutters, his ears cringing when Abe’s grasp tightens and he gets even closer to Mihashi.

“That’s bullshit and you and I both know it!” he roars, and he’s about to continue when Sakaeguchi puts a hand on his shoulder, and suddenly Mihashi’s head is splitting apart with pain piercing in from every direction, and everything hurts and he feels sick and dizzy, and he’s not even aware of the fact that he’d collapsed to his hands and knees on the ground until he feels pressure on his shoulders, Sakaeguchi is next to him and the words  _no fight_  echo in Mihashi’s head as the pressure almost immediately lifts, and when Mihashi blinks his eyes open, Abe’s in front of him, terror in his eyes and all of the blood must be somewhere in his body besides his face with how pale he looks. 

“Abe,” Sakaeguchi says, and without anything else being said, Abe grips Mihashi beneath his arms and half-carries him to the dugout. Mihashi’s body feels so heavy, and as he stares blearily into Abe’s eyes, those eyes that are now so soft and worried about him, he finally feels the familiar sensation of tears in his eyes, and finally he’s crying, because he wants Abe, he  _needs_  him, but he’s tied to someone else,  _Abe’s_  tied to someone else that isn’t him, and it  _hurts_ , it hurts more than any injury he’s ever sustained from baseball, hurts more than Hatake never giving him signs, hurts more than the thought of never playing baseball again. He can feel Abe looking at him, he can feel Abe’s hands pressing into his knees, but he can’t look at those eyes anymore, so he presses the heels of his hands into his eyes, hard enough that he sees stars bursting in his vision, but not hard enough to stop the tears from pouring out harder and harder until he can’t breathe and his whole body hurts from how much it’s shaking.

When he feels Abe’s hands cupping his cheeks, it takes every ounce of self control in Mihashi’s body not to pull away. It’s disgusting, revolting, how much he quivers with pleasure to have Abe touch him like this when he knows they aren’t partners, not like Mihashi wants to be partners, but Abe reaches up and lightly touches his wrists, and when he talks Mihashi can’t help but listen. “Mihashi. Look at me.”

Mihashi lets his hands drop, and he stares at the downwards curve of Abe’s lips, then the gentle curve of his nose, until finally he sees those beautiful grey eyes, feels his heart skip and tightens his fingers on the bench as he swallows thickly. “What’s wrong?” Abe asks, and Mihashi feels himself practically vibrate with anxiety, but when Abe’s hands move and cover his, when he speaks again to say, “Tell me, Mihashi, tell me what’s wrong,” Mihashi hiccups once, then twice, and then he’s talking even though he really doesn’t want to, because Abe asked him to, and he can’t tell Abe no.

It takes a few moments of babbling incoherently before he can take in a deep enough breath to make his mouth form the syllables he needs. “It’s not…. the same,” he finally manages to say, but judging from Abe’s perplexed expression, he hadn’t done a good enough job to explain himself. In this moment more than any other, he hates that he can’t communicate better than this, if only to get this moment over with when each second hurts more than the last.

“What’s not the same?” Abe asks, and Mihashi wishes for a hole to open up so he could tumble inside and never come out, because he’s about to ruin everything he’d delicately built up with Abe, and even though he wants to stop, Abe hasn’t moved and is still staring at him with gunmetal eyes.

Mihashi tries to speak, but somehow he can’t bring himself to say the words, like it’ll make everything even more painfully real. Instead, he releases his hold on the bench with his right hand, prompting Abe to move his own where it had been still sitting on top in what was probably some attempt at keeping Mihashi from running away (it definitely wouldn’t have been a comforting gesture, because why would Abe want to comfort someone gross like Mihashi who was so obsessed with someone else’s partner?). He lifts it, and Abe looks from Mihashi’s face to his shaking hand, then back to his face in confusion, and then he looks back one more time, and Mihashi can see the exact moment that it clicks for him, because his eyes widen, and he doesn’t look back to Mihashi’s face.

“Sakaeguchi-kun said… partners have the same… and… we’re not…” Mihashi manages, voice breaking at the end as his eyes well up with tears again, because there, he said it, he managed to say it and his chest has been crushed and he’s not ready to have Abe leave and never talk to him again, but he knows it’s coming. 

“Mihashi, give me your hand,” Abe says, holding up his left hand like they have been doing in meditation, and Mihashi does as he’s told, wincing when he feels how cold his palm is against Abe’s, and the pain pricks in his chest again because Abe is being nice to him knowing that Mihashi is the only pitcher he’s got, and even if he’s the worst, even if he’s gross and unnatural, he has to put up with him. “Mihashi, breathe.” Mihashi closes his eyes, feeling more tears streak his face because he doesn’t deserve this kindness, it feels like they’re behind the clubhouse at Mihoshi again, but this time when he opens his eyes, Abe isn’t shaking and in tears like he is, but rather he looks calm, like a rock at the edge of a deep pool for Mihashi to use to stay afloat. 

“Abe-kun - ”

“Mihashi, look,” Abe says, pushing his hand harder into their contact point, and Mihashi drags his eyes to the warm palm pressed against his, then back to Abe’s face as confusion causes his tears to slow, except then, tentatively, Abe threads their fingers together, interlocks them, and there’s a flash of black that Mihashi recognizes as the name on his finger, except - except it isn’t on his finger, it’s on the wrong side for it to be his finger, and that could only mean - “It’s the same, Mihashi.” Abe’s voice is soft, barely able to be heard in the loudness of the practice going outside the dugout, but Mihashi hears every inflection and feels it in the string slowly unwinding in his chest.

“It’s the same,” Mihashi repeats, breathing the words rather than speaking them, and he stares at those black lines,  _Weightless_ , and suddenly he understands because his body is light as a feather, and when Abe’s forehead presses against his own, their breath is mixed with the clouds of a sky-born closeness. His palm is hot, like he’s touching the sun with his bare skin, and it’s only when he closes his eyes that he realizes that it  _was_  the same, because it wasn’t a matter of right hand and left hand, it was a matter of pitching hand and catching hand, and the word that he’d wanted to use earlier to Sakaeguchi, the word because ‘partner’ was nowhere near enough to describe this bond between them, the word  _battery_  was suddenly emblazoned on his eyelids, one body and soul, just like they had been since they were born and just like they would always be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This.... was supposed to be a one shot... lmao........ I'll be posting this in parts, and it's looking like I will have a spin-off fic feat. Tajima and Hanai, and.... maybe even a prequel fic for Suyama and Sakaeguchi??? We shall see just how Disastrously Long this thing is going to get ahahhaha


	2. who rise above all that would drag us down

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sakaeguchi is not that good at explaining things and Mihashi thinks he's the best thing since sliced bread, part two. Also, a study in just how amazing it is that something already as gay as abemiha can become twice as gay when put into a Loveless setting. Incredible.

Mihashi is a wreck for the rest of practice, but Momoe doesn’t say anything as if she can understand exactly what had happened, and she doesn’t have her ears or tail anymore so maybe she does. He wonders for a moment what  _her_  true name is, if she ever knew it since you only learn it when you meet your other person, if the person who took her ears was the person who made her feel like Abe made him feel, and he thought back to the moment of shared breath in the dugout and hoped for her sake that it was, because how could anyone feel anything for anyone else except their other half?

It’s a struggle to pay attention when he knows that beneath Abe’s glove is the same word that rubs against the red threading in his hand every time he winds up for a pitch, but he manages, somehow. The hours pass and the sun dies down, and now it feels natural for him to take the left side of Abe’s stance in front of Momoe as they wrap up their practice with a reminder that they’re going to the drawing for the summer tournament tomorrow and to show up on time or else they’d get left behind. Mihashi listens, but he feels the gentle prickle of awareness of Abe at his side, and they’re not standing close enough for it but Mihashi is so sure that he can feel Abe’s body heat radiating to him, and it’s not enough to be distracting, just enough for him to feel the comfort that Abe was next to him, and that the hand next to his at Abe’s thigh was marked for him just as he was marked for Abe. 

When Momoe dismisses them, Mihashi watches as Abe’s spine relaxes a bit from where he’d been standing straight. Those grey eyes look over and catch his own, and the small smile on Abe’s face sends Mihashi’s heart into his throat. There’s a silent command in his eyes, ‘ _follow me’_ , and Mihashi falls into perfect step next to him, tail flickering excitedly behind him. They bike to the clubhouse with everyone else, shower, and then get changed without exchanging a word until they reach the point where every other day Abe pulls off to the right and Mihashi to the left. In near-perfect unison they stop, because today is not every other day, and Mihashi watches as Abe’s fingers tighten and relax in nervous energy on the handlebars of his bike. Mihashi stares at them, sees the black letters scrawled on Abe’s left middle finger, and he doesn’t know how but he knows, he can feel the lead weight sinking heavily in Abe’s gut, but that’s wrong, because they’re Weightless, those who can soar because they aren’t tethered to the ground with nothing holding them down, and Mihashi speaks because he knows what Abe wants to say and what he wants to hear since they are both of the same soul.

“Can I come over?” he asks, phrasing it as a question even though he knows the answer is yes, and he hears Abe exhale in relief a positive answer, and when Mihashi looks up into Abe’s face, the catcher flushes and suddenly Mihashi wonders how many times Abe had felt the weight in Mihashi’s gut, how many times he’d said things to help their communication when Mihashi was the one struggling, and it feels good to have a little bit of a glimpse that this isn’t just from him, and that Abe feels the same things he feels.

Abe looks embarrassed to have someone over, if the way he gets red in the face when he turns to Mihashi and warns him, “My mom will be home, and she’s kind of obnoxious, but don’t let it bother you,” and it feels like Abe coming up to the mound and telling him that they’re feeling out a batter and he might get it, except on the mound Abe isn’t flushed with embarrassment and practically wiggling in his shoes. “All right, come on in.”

Abe opens the door and steps in, hollering a loud “I’m home” that covers up Mihashi’s mumbled “Please excuse the intrusion”, and Mihashi slips off his shoes in the doorway just behind Abe and steps into the guest slippers that are pink and just a little bit too small for his feet. Probably it’s Abe’s mom who has people over the most, Mihashi guesses, eyes wide as Abe’s mother comes to greet her son and hesitates when she sees him as well.

“Oh, Taka, you brought a friend home,” she says, a teasing smile on her face. “Isn’t this remarkable?”

“O-oh, I’m… Mihashi Ren, thank you for letting me come over,” Mihashi says, remembering his manners and giving Abe’s mother a bow. She coos immediately, and Mihashi feels himself turning a bit pink as she gives him a bright smile that makes him wonder if Abe has a smile like that, because he really wants to see it if he does.

“You’re just the cutest little thing, aren’t you? Taka, you bully, why didn’t you get him over here sooner? Ahh, do you want some tea, Ren-kun?” Mihashi feels his flush get brighter as Abe’s mother continues to natter on about him, until finally Abe growls, his ears sticking straight up and his tail bushing out. At the sight, Abe’s mom snickered into her hand, waving him off. “Right, right, I get it. You two go on ahead up, and I’ll come bring you some tea in a bit.”

Mihashi can practically hear Abe grinding his teeth together, but he exhales and starts up the steps with the unspoken understanding that Mihashi was to follow behind. He does, looking around and taking in everything about Abe’s house, from the way it smells to the way the walls feel beneath his curious fingertips and the exact shade of the light in the hall to Abe’s bedroom, and then when Abe turns into a room after pushing open the door, Mihashi stands in the frame because this is where Abe slept every night, that desk is where he did homework, that window looked out onto the street where he came home every day. He feels suddenly warm, this moment suddenly intimate, and when he looks over at Abe, the pink on his catcher’s cheeks lets him know that he feels it, too. 

One step into Abe’s room is tough, but then Mihashi goes in the rest of the way until he’s standing next to Abe, staring at his toes. He’s not really sure why he asked to come over, to be honest, or why Abe wanted him to come over, but there’s sudden movement and Mihashi jumps a bit before he realizes that it’s just Abe rubbing a bit of the tension out of the back of his neck. “Do you… here, sit down,” Abe says, pointing towards the bed, but Mihashi’s legs respond a little too quickly and he plops down on the floor instead next to the small table. Abe’s anger is quick and hot. “Idiot! Be careful of your legs!”

Mihashi flinches a bit, but then Abe sits next to him, reaching a hand out and prodding him around until Abe’s satisfied that he didn’t hurt himself. He closes his eyes and exhales a bit, his hand lingering on Mihashi’s knee, and then he’s opening his eyes and staring at his hand on Mihashi’s skin, and when Mihashi looks, he sees that it’s his left hand, and he slowly reaches over with his right hand, hesitant, until his fingers brush Abe’s. He hears Abe hiss in a breath at the contact, and he knows why, because he feels the exact same rush of heat and electricity from the touch, and he knows that the heat rising in his cheeks is causing the same flush that he can see on Abe’s face. He pushes his hand forward, until their fingers are interlocked like they were earlier, and the moment that Abe’s palm presses against his, the places on their hands where their name  collides feel warm, and a gentle ache releases in Mihashi’s skin that he didn’t even know he’d had until he’d lost it.

“How long…?” Mihashi asks, remembering the dugout and how unsurprised Abe had been, and it didn’t occur to him then because he’d been so emotionally overwhelmed by everything, but it only makes sense that Abe had to have known, because he hadn’t been surprised at all. Somehow, he suddenly feels uncomfortable, because Abe had definitely known that they were like this, that they were partners, they were a true battery, one soul stretched across a baseball field. 

“Since Mihoshi,” Abe answers, his voice quiet, running his thumb over the back of Mihashi’s hand, and Mihashi remembers the first time they’d touched like this, palm to palm, by the clubhouse, how Abe had taken his hand so gently and run a finger over each of his callouses, and of course, he would have seen it then, adoring his hand like he had, but there’s still a feeling of sinking in his stomach, a hole opening up and swallowing him inside, because something is wrong, and he doesn’t know what it is but he’s opening his mouth and something comes out before his brain consciously knows it.

“Lonely…” Mihashi suddenly realizes, saying the word out loud before he knows why, but as soon as he does, he knows it’s true. “I was… lonely, without Abe-kun.” He feels his ears fall against his head, and he stares at their conjoined hands like it was the only thing keeping him tethered here, except then he feels warmth against his skin at his temple, and when he looks up, Abe’s free hand is tracing along his hairline, then into his hair to lightly touch Mihashi’s ear. It flickers in response, his natural ticklish nature kicking in, and he can’t help the soft squeak that comes out of his mouth. A soft sound fills the air between them, and Mihashi blinks in surprise when he recognizes it as Abe’s laugh.

“I’m sorry,” he says suddenly, his face falling into a serious expression. “I didn’t want to rush you. Besides,” he continued, his fingers reaching up again and pressing harder against Mihashi’s ear, hard enough not to tickle, and instead in a gentle caress, “you weren’t really without me, were you?”

Warmth spread all over Mihashi’s body, and he licked his lips when they felt suddenly dry, and he very much wanted to lean over and kiss Abe, but before he could do anything, there was a gentle rapping on Abe’s door and his mother was coming in with a tray of tea and cookies. Mihashi noted that Abe didn’t release his hand, but he did drop their connected hands to the floor and out of sight behind him, keeping their connection but avoiding having to talk about it at the moment because this was their time for one another, not for anyone else to intrude on, not even Abe’s mother. “Ren-kun, are you going to be staying for dinner?” Abe’s mother asks after she puts the tray on the table in front of them, and Mihashi looks to Abe questioningly. He gets a soft expectant glower in response, so he looks back to Abe’s mom and nods hesitantly. She seems positively amused at their dynamic, if her little laugh is anything to go by, so she claps her hands together and turns to leave the room. “Okay. Make sure to call your mother and let her know where you are, Ren-kun. Cute little boys like yourself shouldn’t make your mother worry!”

“Y-yes, ma’am!” Mihashi chirps, and when she shuts the door, he pulls the phone out of his pocket, blushing a bit when Abe reaches around him for a cookie. It would have been easier to let his hand go and reach with his left hand, Mihashi thought while listening to the phone ring, but a tightening around his fingers let him know that Abe was just as reluctant as he was to break their connection. His mother’s voicemail picks up, and he feels his tail flicker once happily since she’s still at work, meaning he doesn’t have to feel guilty about leaving her to eat by herself at the last minute. “Mom, it’s me. I’m staying over at Abe-kun’s for dinner, but I’ll call you before I come home. Love you,” he says, closing his phone when he was through leaving her a message. He grabs a cookie and bites into it, enjoying the lemon flavor on his tongue. 

The room is silent save for their quiet munching. Mihashi stares at the plate of cookies and the cup of tea placed just in front of him, feels the warmth of Abe’s hand against his, and wonders if he’s really allowed to feel this happy. He looks at Abe out of the corner of his eyes and sees that Abe is staring at him, and he startles a bit, swallowing half his cookie whole and coughing a bit. Abe rolls his eyes and hands him his cup of tea, and Mihashi takes a large gulp to get the dry cookie down before falling silent again.

“You said earlier… that Sakaeguchi told you about our name,” Abe says, breaking the gentle silence between them.

Mihashi nodded, putting the cup of tea down and grabbing another cookie. “He said… that I had someone with the same name, in the same place,” Mihashi looks down at their entwined fingers, nibbling on the cookie a bit. “That’s why I got scared… because I looked at Abe-kun’s right hand and I didn’t see it…”

“It is in the same place though, isn’t it?” Abe asks simply, and Mihashi nods, because he’s right, their bodies aren’t connected through silly things like left and right, but by a baseball leaving one palm and connecting into another. Abe sips at his tea, staring thoughtfully at the table, then puts his cup down and looks at Mihashi carefully. “I did some reading about pairs,” he says, and Mihashi blinks, staring so that Abe will know he’s listening.

“Sakaeguchi-kun… said…!” Mihashi adds eagerly. “He said… there were things we needed to know… but, together, we would learn them them.” Abe nods, and Mihashi feels his fingers grip even tighter, and somehow he feels like Abe doesn’t like the things he read.

“Do you remember this afternoon on the field, when you almost passed out?” Abe asks, and Mihashi has to think because no, he doesn’t really remember something like that, but then he remembers pain and pressure, things that didn’t go away until Sakaeguchi said something - ‘ _no fight’ -_ and Mihashi is nodding, because he thinks that’s what Abe means. “That happens when two pairs come together, and the Fighters either call for a battle or they say that they don’t want to fight. That’s why you fell over.” Two pairs, Mihashi thinks, remembering the way Sakaeguchi was with Suyama at lunch and the way he said ‘ _You too_ ’ like he understood what was going on with Mihashi, and suddenly he understands a lot about his teammate that he couldn’t have dreamed to comprehend just that morning.

“Fight…er,” Mihashi repeats the word slowly, letting the syllables roll around in his mouth. “I’m a Fighter.” He surprises himself, but even as he says it, he knows it’s true. He looks to Abe, who has a serious expression on his face. “I’m Abe-kun’s Fighter. But… What…?”  _What does that mean_ , Mihashi wants to ask, and  _I don’t want to fight,_ but Abe sweeps his thumb over the back of Mihashi’s hand, and instantly Mihashi knows he doesn’t have to ask, because Abe will answer.

“That’s right. And I’m your Sacrifice,” he says, and Mihashi nods, because he knows it’s true, even if it wasn’t Abe saying it. “When -  _If,_ if we have to fight someone else, you’ll be the one making the attack, and I take the damage, until someone wins or gives up.”

“No!” Mihashi yelps, his free hand reaching out and grabbing Abe’s shirt tightly in pale fingers. “I won’t let… Abe-kun get hurt.” Mihashi swallows, leans forward so that his forehead is pressed against Abe’s shoulder, and closes his eyes. Abe feels strong beneath his hand, his muscles are soft and his heart beating fast, but even then Mihashi shudders at the thought of Abe in pain. “We won’t fight.”

“We might not be able to avoid it,” Abe murmurs, his hand coming up to run through Mihashi’s hair. The tips of his fingers curl around the base of Mihashi’s ears, and Mihashi feels his tail flicker in a pleased response. Then, there’s a brush against his tail, and he knows without looking that it’s Abe’s tail seeking his, and silently, he twines his tail around Abe’s at the same time that Abe does the same to him, and it’s so incredibly intimate that Mihashi feels himself blush. Ears and tails were not something that other people touched because of what they stood for, but somehow, Abe’s touch isn’t indecent; rather, it was almost too good, and Mihashi feels the shivers that chase from the curling of Abe’s tail around his all the way to his ears quivering against each sweep of Abe’s fingertips, and he thinks that Abe is the only one allowed to touch him like this, just like he’s the only one allowed to touch Abe like this. 

Mihashi lets his hold on Abe’s shirt loosen, spreads his fingers out until he’s pressing his palm against Abe’s chest, and slowly, he drags his palm up, until he’s touching Abe’s neck. It’s hot beneath his fingers, and he can feel the thick swallow when he tilts his head up and presses a gentle kiss to the soft skin of Abe’s throat. Abe shudders out a haggard breath, Mihashi pressing one last kiss to the place where Abe’s jaw angled by his throat, and then the moment is cracked like glass when Abe’s mother calls them for supper. Mihashi pulls his face away from Abe’s neck, and when Abe leans forward and brushes his nose against Mihashi’s, Mihashi lets his eyes close as he savors one last moment of closeness before he stands and goes downstairs to eat. It’s just the three of them because Abe’s father is still at work and his little brother is at a classmate’s doing a project, but it feels like one too many when Mihashi feels Abe curl his tail around Mihashi’s under the table and keeps it that way for the entire meal.

“Text me when you get home,” Abe says while Mihashi finishes putting on his shoes to go home after they finish eating. He’d gotten a text from his mother during dinner saying that she was home, and not to stay out too late if he wasn’t going to stay the night. The temptation had been high, but Mihashi felt a twinge of worry in his gut that he was expecting too much out of Abe so soon. So, instead, he told Abe his mother told him to come home.

Mihashi nods, then turns his body and bows to Abe’s mother, who had come to the doorway to watch him off as well. She smiles again, patting him on the head between his ears before going into the kitchen to clean the dishes, leaving Mihashi to look back to Abe with flattening ears, because he didn’t want to go, he wanted to stay longer, he wanted to hold hands and curl their tails together and… and maybe even kiss a little, if Abe would let him. Abe’s eyes flicked up to them, and Mihashi straightened them on purpose, feeling the blush rise a bit on his cheeks to be so transparent.

“I’m going to see you tomorrow,” Abe says, and Mihashi nods, forcing his ears upright, just like Abe had told him in the ballpark when they were talking about grinning at the batter to make him angry, and not to flatten his ears when he got anxious on the mound. He nods, but his stomach feels tight and heavy in his gut, or at least it does until he sees Abe look over his shoulder quickly, and then lean in and press a warm kiss to Mihashi’s temple. His skin feels electric where Abe’s lips touched, and a hot trail of fingers ghosts down the side of his throat as Abe curled himself around Mihashi to hide him from the view of the kitchen. Lips press to his ear, and Mihashi shudders all the way to the curling toes in his shoes. When Abe pulls back, he's flushed red and his eyes darker than normal, jaw tight as he steps back and pulls his whole body away. 

Mihashi wonders at how light he feels again, and he turns away from Abe before his catcher can see the tears collecting on his lashes for some reason he doesn’t really understand. He walks to his bike, unlocks it, and then pedals away with naught but the sound of his tires against the pavement. It takes him a moment to remember how to breathe with the memory of moist breath against his ear and darkened droopy eyes pinning him into place.

He shakes himself out of his trance as he bikes, passing through streetlights and thinking about everything and nothing, until he remembers the word that had echoed in his head earlier,  _Fighter_ , and how he knew so much and yet so little about it. Abe had said that pairs fight sometimes, and that he would get hurt while Mihashi did the attacking, but out here on his bike in the dark, Mihashi feels a shiver of awareness that he is very alone. What would happen if another pair found him now, and attacked him? Would they kick him, or hurt his pitching arm? What if he couldn’t play baseball anymore?

Mihashi physically shook his head, feeling his hands grip his handlebars tightly. Abe had said it, hadn’t he? He would see Mihashi tomorrow, and that meant that he would be okay. Abe had said so, and Mihashi parts his lips and starts to hum under his breath a bit to keep himself distracted from any thoughts that weren’t about the way Abe’s fingers curled so nicely against his own. 

It works, and he’s home safely where he sees his mother’s car in the driveway and the front light on. He parks his bike and opens the door, lets his mother know he’s home, and immediately after shutting the door behind him, he pulls out his cell phone.

[From: Mihashi Ren]  
[To: Abe Takaya]  
[Time: 22:43:07]  
[Sub: I’m home]  
[so don’t worry.]

Mihashi stares at his phone for a few seconds, waiting for a response, but it doesn’t come right away. The sting of disappointment pricks at his chest, but he figures that it only makes sense, right? Abe’s phone was probably up in his room, and he was probably downstairs talking to his mom, and it wasn’t like he was holding his phone in his hand desperately waiting for Mihashi to text him. Mihashi kicks off his shoes and goes up to his room, grabbing his clothes to change. He checks his phone one last time before he goes to take a shower, but it’s as empty a response as it had been in the doorway downstairs. When he comes back, however, his phone is flashing with the light of a notification, and he snatches it quickly to read the response.

[From: Abe Takaya]  
[To: Mihashi Ren]  
[Time: 22:48:41]  
[Sub: Re:I’m home]  
[Get some sleep. We have a busy day tomorrow.]

Clutching his phone to his chest, Mihashi crawls into bed, and almost before he pulls the blanket up to his chin he feels himself dozing off, surrounded by the warmth of his bed and the gentle command from his other half to sleep well.

\----------

The next morning, Mihashi is surrounded by giants. Baseball players are huge, he thinks, wondering if he’ll ever grow to be that tall and if his muscles will ever get to be that impressive. He looks to Abe, who is mindlessly doing something with his phone, remembers the gentle press of muscles against his palm, and he suddenly feels very distant. It’s only when Abe looks over his shoulder and frowns that he realizes that he’d actually reached out and grabbed his shirt in his fingers, as if somehow that would keep Abe from flying away where he couldn’t follow.

“What is it?” he asks, and Mihashi blinks rapidly as he tries to think of something to say that wouldn’t make him angry. Sakaeguchi gives him just the out he’s looking for when he clutches his stomach and asks Hanai if he can go to the bathroom. 

“M-Me too,” Mihashi says, looking at Abe’s frustrated expression with a bit of relief because at least he isn’t angry.

“You’re getting nervous diarrhea, too? How pathetic,” Abe sighs.

“No, it’s… I have to pee,” Mihashi corrects, and it’s not a lie because he does kind of have to pee, tagging closely behind Sakaeguchi in the building when Hanai snaps and tells them both to go on in. They find the first bathroom, and Sakaeguchi takes the middle stall while Mihashi goes up to the urinal and does his business. He washes his hands, probably more amused by the foaming hand soap than he probably should be, until Sakaeguchi calls for help.

After running into Haruna and managing to get the toilet paper, Sakaeguchi comes out of the stall and washes his hands as well, looking much better than he did before they came in. “Thanks, Mihashi,” he says, and Mihashi nods, but then he blinks, because isn’t something weird?

“S… Sakaeguchi-kun,” Mihashi starts, causing his teammate to look at him questioningly. “Um… The other day… at practice… fight…”

It takes him a minute, but Sakaeguchi seems to piece together what Mihashi was saying. “Oh, that. I guess you talked to Abe about it, then?” Mihashi nodded his head jerkily, but then he fidgeted and looked at Sakaeguchi curiously.

“Has… Have you and… ever gotten in a fight?” he asks, and he can tell from Sakaeguchi’s expression the answer before he hears it.

“Just once,” Sakaeguchi says, his expression pulled a bit. Mihashi stares, hoping for details, how to win, how to keep Abe from getting hurt, and something on his face must have gotten his desperate need across because Sakaeguchi glances at him, then down to the floor. “It’s really unpleasant. It’s like you and the other pair are the only ones exist, and you have to try and use a better Wordspell than the other team to make them lose before you lose.”

“Wordspell?” Mihashi repeats, and Sakaeguchi looks back at him and laughs nervously while rubbing the back of my head.

“Wow, you really don’t know anything, huh?” Mihashi shakes his head, and Sakaeguchi looks at his watch. “We have a few minutes. Come on, let’s go sit down somewhere.” Mihashi follows him to a bench in a second hallway that isn’t as crowded as the main area, but still has enough people that it’s hard to overhear them. “So, it starts with the Fighters accepting a battle. When their Fighter Fields come into contact, they either fight or they decline.”

“Why aren’t we fighting, then?” Mihashi asks.

“Your Fighter Field is saying that you don’t want to fight, and so is mine,” Sakaeguchi answers. “It’s sort of like… a message that you put out to others. The other day in practice, I guess you were worked up or something, because as soon as I came close, your Field triggered and I had to tell you that I didn’t want to fight.”

Mihashi closes his eyes, remembering the crushing pressure on the baseball field, and how it had all gone away the moment he registered the words ‘no fight’. He doesn’t really understand, not really, except that maybe he was feeling particularly defensive because Abe was in his face and angry, and maybe when Sakaeguchi had touched Abe something had triggered, but that didn’t make sense,  _none_ of this made sense, but he nodded his head because he’d either figure it out later or it wasn’t that important to begin with.

“Well, for us, it was sort of an accident, because we didn’t know that we could turn the other pair down,” Sakaeguchi continues. “I’ve read up a lot more on it since then, but this wasn’t too long after we’d found each other, so we were pretty new. Anyway, the fight starts, and you take turns attacking each other with words while the Sacrifice takes the damage.” Mihashi swallows thickly, looking down to the ground, because he figures that he knows better than most just how much words can hurt. “The more detailed the spell, the more damage it does. We… we almost lost,” Sakaeguchi admits, his hands tightening on his slacks by his knees. “But then I used our name, and I think somehow that’s the strongest spell you can use, if you’re careful, because we won right away.”

Mihashi stares at where Sakaeguchi is clutching his knees in pained memory, and suddenly he notices that Sakaeguchi’s grip caused his pants to ride up a bit from his ankles, and there on the skin, there’s black lettering, and the word ‘Painless’ is etched in Sakaeguchi’s skin. He looks away, back down to the floor between his feet, and he thinks about the expression on Sakaeguchi’s face when he thinks about his partner in pain, and now more than ever Mihashi knows he will never get into a fight.

They go into the audience hall where everyone is waiting, and Mihashi takes a seat just behind Abe. The ceremony goes forward, Hanai draws the #84 that matches them with Tosei, and Momoe destroys their hesitance with the new practice schedule from five to nine. They go into the meeting hall with renewed vigor for summer practice, but Mihashi can only remember Abe’s words that he’ll pitch a shut out, that he can pitch a shut out, and every cell in his body feels alive at the thought of winning another game. 

“Mihashi, why are you following me?” Abe’s voice says, drawing Mihashi out of his thoughts, and he looks up to see that he had indeed been following Abe without minding where he was going or what he was doing. Abe sighs, putting his head in his hand, then turns to head back to - oh, Abe had been going to the bathroom before they left, Mihashi realizes, and the rest of the group was collecting at the front of the building before they returned to school. “Whatever. Come on, I guess.”

He tags along, staring at the width of Abe’s shoulders and then going into the bathroom to lean against the wall in the front to wait for Abe to finish. He stares at the tile between his feet, at the tops of his shoes, and the light flicking of his tail around his knees. “Abe-kun… did you mean it?” he says, his voice soft but audible in the empty bathroom. 

“Huh? Mean what?” Abe asks, zipping his pants and going to wash his hands. Mihashi stares, watching his every movement, then looks back down at the palms of his hands and remembers the grip Abe had on his shirt earlier when he’d said it.

“That… I can pitch a shut out against Tosei,” Mihashi clarifies, and there’s no noise in the bathroom save for the running water being turned off and Abe grabbing a paper towel to dry off his hands. Mihashi watches, eyes wide, as Abe throws away the towel and then comes over to stand in front of him. 

“Of course I did. We can do it, if we work hard.” Mihashi swallows, feeling himself start to tremble with excitement, and he wants to win with Abe more than anything else, he thinks, he wants that thrill of victory on the baseball field. “Except you have to be careful not to work too hard. If you do anything stupid, our chances are shot.”

Mihashi goes to nod his head, because he will practice  _exactly_  as much as Abe tells him, but the motion causes an intense pain to shoot through his skull. He feels himself stagger a bit, his palm coming to press hard against his temple, and then there’s pressure against his shoulders and Abe’s closeness. “Mihashi?!” The pain comes again, and in a panic, Mihashi realizes that it’s not the nodding that caused his pain, and he’s felt this before but it wasn’t malicious, and suddenly he’s gripping Abe’s bicep tightly with his left hand  _no no no no no_  - “Mihashi!”

“ **Requesting battle** ,” a voice echoes in his head, and he looks to the entrance of the bathroom to see two figures lingering outside the doorway, a girl and a boy, and it was the girl staring at him with wide, predatory eyes. 

“N-no… I don’t want to fight…!” Mihashi responds, and another flash of pain almost has him to his knees. The girl talks again, and her voice sounds normal to his ears but strange in his head, and Mihashi remembers Sakaeguchi saying something about how it was a battle between pairs and like they were the only ones who existed, and he realizes that no one else would be able to hear these agonizing sounds in his head.

“ **Requesting battle** ,” the girl says again, and then her lips curl into a humorless smile. “If you accept it will stop hurting.”

It’s tempting for a split second, but then Mihashi remembers the expression on Sakaeguchi’s face, remembers Abe’s voice telling him that he’s the one to take damage during the battle, and it’s okay now if he’s the one in pain, because at least Abe isn’t feeling this. He’s okay, but then Abe’s right hand grips his own, and Mihashi looks to see frantic eyes meeting his own, and Abe says, “It’s okay. We’ll win. Accept the battle,” and even though his whole body screams no, Abe Takaya is the one person he can never deny, and so Mihashi’s eyes close and he chokes out the words.

“I… **I accept** _,_ ” he says, and there’s a strange twist to the world as the pain suddenly melts away from Mihashi’s body and he can finally stand again. Abe’s hand is still clutching his own, almost painfully, and they watch as the girl stands next to her Sacrifice with a determined expression. Mihashi feels a flash of panic again, because he remembers Sakaeguchi saying something about words, but what does he say, how does this work - 

“ **Water, swift and deep! Drown under the torrential flood!** ”

As soon as the words escape the girl’s mouth, a wave crashes into Mihashi’s body, and he’s almost knocked over with the force. He straightens his spine, but a flash of pain in his right hand draws his attention. He feels his blood drain from his face when he looks to Abe and sees that he’s drenched, a chain appearing from the black nothingness floor and wrapped around his neck in a painful manner. Then, Abe looks to him, gritting his teeth. “Mihashi, do something!”

Mihashi snaps his eyes back to the other pair, trying to keep his teeth from chattering as he tries desperately to emulate the girl’s attack to make his own. He thinks about Haruna, the motion of a windup pitch, and how much it would hurt to get hit by one of those. “ **T-Ten thousand baseballs, from all directions, faster than you can catch!** ” 

In a flash of movement, Mihashi watches as exactly what he’d said had come true, and the girl’s Sacrifice is pelted with painful pitches. She watches in horror, then growls fiercely. “ **You are only one person; Ten thousand pitches is impossible. Your attack connects only once!** ” Horror pulls Mihashi’s stomach when he realizes that the girl had just undone his attack, and her Sacrifice now stands with only one baseball rolling away. “ **But our attack is many. Rocks, hundreds, roll down the hill and crush you beneath their weight**!”

Mihashi sees the vision in his head, feels a crushing pain on his right hand, and it’s then that he suddenly thinks that something about her spell is wrong, and he feels the calm from Abe’s palm pressing into his, and with a thought of  _third base runner_ , he manages to blink open his eyes and realize the flaw.

“ **Your rocks are pointless. We are Weightless, those who rise above everything that would drag us down…** ” He tries desperately to think, and then he remembers Sakaeguchi telling him how their name is the most effective spell if they can use it correctly, and this is it, this is the bottom of the ninth with a runner on third, and Tajima is up to bat and ready to hit a home run. “ **Your attack misses us and hits you instead.**  You’re…  **You’re the ones crushed!** ”

There’s a tug in Mihashi’s gut, and he feels a twist that has him disoriented and clutching at Abe’s soaked shoulder to keep himself upright. When he finally opens his eyes, they’re back in the bathroom, and the girl’s Sacrifice is slumped on the floor, hand pressed to his head to cover a wound that’s bleeding profusely. She grabs his bag and pulls out an undershirt, pressing it to the wound as she shoots a venomous look to Mihashi with tears on her lashes, and there’s a moment where he winces away, but he feels the trembling of Abe’s hand in his own, and suddenly he feels like glaring back at her, because this had been all her fault anyway.

Her Sacrifice stands and pulls her away, mumbling something about ‘bad idea’ and ‘I’m sorry’, and Mihashi watches warily as they stumble off back into the busy hallway before there’s a collapse next to him. His stomach twists, and Mihashi turns to see Abe having fallen to his knees, face pale and his neck red with an angry mark where the chain had been. Mihashi crowds close, pressing his forehead to Abe’s, and finally he feels the tears well up, partly because of relief that they’d won, he’d managed to scare away the other pair, but partly because Abe had gotten hurt, and if he’d been stronger, if he’d been able to destroy the other pair with his first spell, Abe wouldn’t be here shivering and hurting like this. 

“Mihashi,” Abe says, his voice a little above a croak from his abused throat, “you did good. Stop crying, you did so good.”

“Abe-kun… got hurt,” Mihashi hiccups, pulling back and looking at his throat. He lifts a hand and gently touches the red mark, his stomach curling and pressing on his diaphragm until he can barely breathe with the guilt. “I wasn’t strong enough to keep you from getting hurt.”

“I’ve had worse,” Abe tells him, but Mihashi can feel the way he shivers from the water, and he knows it’s cold because there are little drops from Abe’s hair falling onto his skin, and it suddenly occurs to him that they have to go back to their team with Abe like this. He looks at Abe’s throat, but there’s nothing he can think of to hide the mark, and if Abe had his bag with him he could change, but he doesn’t, and he doesn’t want to talk about the fight with anyone, he just wants to press close to Abe and reassure himself that they’re okay. “Come on. We have to go back.”

Mihashi stands first, and Abe follows, taking an unsure first step but then managing to walk normally, and Mihashi’s right hand screams to reach out and take Abe’s left in a tight hold, but he doesn’t know how comfortable Abe is with them in public yet, if he’s okay with anyone knowing, and it hurts to think that Abe would want to hide their relationship to the rest of the team, but it would hurt more for Abe to be mad at him. He curls his right hand into a fist, and he knows his ears are pressed hard against his skull but he can’t make them stand straight and he can’t fake a smile, not right now.

“Whoa, did you fall in?” Mizutani laughs when they come back, and Mihashi’s ears pick up Abe’s lie about a pipe breaking in his face when he went to go wash his hands, but Mihashi looks at Sakaeguchi, and there’s an unspoken understanding between the two of them that has the second baseman coming forward and putting a comforting hand on Mihashi’s shoulder. 

“We… we won,” Mihashi says, but he doesn’t sound happy even to his own ears, he doesn’t feel happy. It’s not the kind of feeling with victory that he gets with baseball, that elated flying feeling. It’s a sickening feeling, that he needs to be better, that no matter what next time absolutely can’t happen. “I didn’t… want to fight, but Abe-kun said we could win…” Mihashi feels himself start to tear up again, and he closes his eyes tightly. “Next time… next time I’m not going to listen to him. I won’t fight again.”

Sakaeguchi sighs softly. “Mihashi, you can’t  _not_  listen to Abe,” he says, causing Mihashi to look up in confusion, even though he’s known that, he’s known that since he nodded his head when Abe told him to pitch the way he called, the moment he’d said that he would make Mihashi a true ace. “The Fighter has to obey all of the Sacrifice’s commands. If Abe tells you to fight, then you have to fight.”

“B-But…!”

“I’m sure he was doing it to protect you. It hurts when you say no, and I’m sure he didn’t want to see you hurting any more than you want to see him hurting.” Mihashi falls silent, because he thinks back to the bathroom, and it  _did_  hurt, it hurt more than anything he’d ever experienced, and he wondered if that’s why Abe told him to fight, and now he feels sicker than ever. He would have to get stronger so Abe would never have to worry about him feeling hurt, so they could say no to fights. 

The trek back to the school is miserable, and Mihashi stands as close as he feels he can allow himself to Abe, who has somehow wiggled out of explaining where his wound came from while Mihashi was talking to Sakaeguchi. They bike to the baseball field in silence, finish practice in silence, shower and get dressed in silence, and then stand in the clubroom in silence. Mihashi purposefully takes longer to fold his clothes, smoothing out every wrinkle, and he knows that Abe is doing the same next to him, their thoughts unified without a word passing between them. One by one, their teammates leave, until Hanai tosses Abe the keys to lock up if he’s going to be the last one out. 

As soon as they’re alone, Mihashi wonders if Abe would say or do something, but there’s a moment of nothingness that stretches for an age of the earth between them. And then, at the exact same time Mihashi reaches out his right hand, Abe reaches out his left, and their fingers mingle in the middle with an unspoken need to comfort each other’s agony. Mihashi feels his eyes heating, and he bites his lip hard but can’t stop the soft sob. He turns, and then presses his forehead into Abe’s collarbone, his left hand reaching up to clutch in Abe’s shirt at his ribcage, and he hears himself apologizing over and over again under each hiccuping wail. Abe says nothing, just lets Mihashi cry, his right hand soft on the small of Mihashi’s back, thumb running comforting circles around his spine. 

“Don’t… I don’t ever want to do that again,” Mihashi manages, fingers clutching tighter. “I can take it… it’s okay if it hurts me… It’s okay…”

Abe doesn’t say anything, he just pulls Mihashi closer, the hand on his back spreading as he lets his palm trace up Mihashi’s spine, until he threads his fingers through Mihashi’s hair, tugging until Mihashi’s head is tilted back. Abe leans in, pressing his forehead against Mihashi’s and rubbing his nose affectionately with his own, and in that movement, Mihashi feels the soft tremble that’s not from his own body, and maybe Sakaeguchi had been right, that it had been just as hard for Abe to see him in pain as it was for him to see Abe in pain, and Mihashi calms down almost immediately with the wordless reminder that their battery went both ways; Mihashi pitched, Abe caught, and both worked together.

Mihashi pulls back before leaning down, pressing his lips against the redness on Abe’s throat that was still raw and painful-looking, closing his eyes as  _it doesn’t hurt anymore it doesn’t hurt anymore_  chants in his mind like a healing mantra, and he wants it to be true more than anything. He hears the soft hitch in Abe’s breath, feels the way his body leans in instinctively to the touch, and then Abe is touching his ears again, softly, a sweep for each kiss that Mihashi gently presses on the skin beneath his lips. He presses closer, closer, until Abe’s back is against the lockers behind them, his black tail reaching forward and curling around Mihashi’s, and from knee to neck they’re pressed together like their palms, sharing warmth and comfort. Mihashi feels their name burning on his skin, tightens his hold on Abe’s left hand and lets his tongue lightly caress the softness beneath Abe’s jaw. Abe’s nail scratches the skin of his ear, and he can’t help the soft sound that rushes out, body moving because he wants to get even closer, Abe’s tail pulls his closer, his hand grips Mihashi’s tightly and his body arches off the lockers, and Mihashi makes another sound as heat slowly starts to simmer beneath his skin. It’s intoxicating to be this close, and he lets his tongue taste the curve of Abe’s shoulder before he freezes because Abe’s lips press against his ears in a kiss, and then a nip of teeth that has him clutching Abe in a wild jerk of sudden pleasure.

Mihashi lets himself shiver against Abe, savors the sensation of trembling from the heavy touching, feels that each wave was not all his, that Abe is just as affected as he is, and he really  _really_  wants to kiss Abe but that would mean he would have to move, and just like this, his hand pressed on one side of Abe’s throat as he inhales gently on the other side, right hand clasped and tails twined with every inch of their bodies matching together, he feels absolutely content, for now. He just breathes, in and out, like he’s meditating on the field, connecting this feeling of contentment and peace with Abe, reinforcing the mental connection, letting it build in his mind like the image of the third base runner. 

“We should go home,” Abe says at the exact moment that Mihashi has the same thought, because they have practice at five in the morning tomorrow, and they still have to get home, they still have to eat dinner and talk to their parents and pretend that they’re whole when they’re not together. Mihashi doesn’t speak, doesn’t move, just nods, because even though he knows Abe is right, he wants to stay like this for a moment longer, just one, just one more, until finally he pulls himself away and nods at Abe in understanding.

They get their bikes and ride, silent, until they get to the intersection where they split off. Mihashi stops, and looks over at Abe, who stares at him before he gives a soft smile and beckons for Mihashi to come over. Mihashi hops off his bike quickly and ungracefully, already reaching for Abe, and he wraps his arms around Abe’s soft muscles, letting his palms press into the shoulder blades beneath them hungrily, tail flicking contentedly when Abe presses a kiss to his forehead when he pulls back. “Text me when you get home,” he says, and Mihashi nods, going back to his bike as he hears Abe’s wheels against the pavement as he whirrs down the street before he remounts his bike and does the same, body full and yet so light, for a moment he thinks if he tried just a little, he could fly.  


End file.
